Rank Up Sales Through Excellent Web Design

Low on sales? Is increasing sales stat your target this 2017? Then get it’s time to give your website a makeover.

A web design company, whether located in the Philippines or not, can help you upgrade your site and give it a whole new look. But, what exactly does your web presence need to pitch your products or service successfully? Moreover what attracts visitors to become loyal to the brand? You need to assess our answers to these questions to understand before you make a 360 change in your sales strategy.

Elements of web design that sells

To attract customers, you need personal touch

Always think of the target user when deciding which web design suits the brand.

Website visitors or customers stem from various age groups and demographics, so it’s best to have a target market in mind. This narrows the characteristics and design elements you need to have on your website. For example, younger group ages are attracted to bright colors and loud elements. It’s the opposite with professionals. They prefer clean, simple and to-the-point design and details in websites.

Besides the visual aesthetics, invoking an emotional response from the audience is another strategy to create sales. People crave an idea or thing once they see others using or doing it. French philosopher Rene Girard gave the term ‘mimetic desire’ for the idea, and it was backed up by French neuroscientists. For web designers, mimetic desire comes in the form of social proof. Desires are provoked if someone else does it first.

An effective way to employ social proof in a website is by adding reviews or testimonials from past customers. It builds your credibility as a company, and it shows how effective the brand is. Testimonials, reviews and even subscriber numbers work because they mirror the brand’s values, which reflects back to the customer’s expectations.

Another sure-fire way to invoke an emotional response is by having a facial expression in the line of sight. Facial expressions are inherent and universal, so seeing a smile or a frown signals our brain an interest to understand the feeling behind the expression. Brands that employ emotional responses are far more enticing to consumers because of the emotional association.

Keep their interest, then make them loyal

A classic web design that is clean and simple is easier to digest.

An A+ web design starts with a well-designed brand. The engagement of the customer also depends on branding. Clients and audience do not know the company as a whole, so they will judge you through your logo and website. The logo is what makes buyers and viewers recall the experience and service of the company. Make sure you create a lasting impression with the right color and intentional design creations.

The color of the logo is a powerful visual cue. Consumers may not remember the company name, but the memory of the logo’s design makes the site recognizable. Color is also associated with emotions which make it easier for the brain to retain the information.

Furthermore, the digital age brought a new challenge to advertisers and designers – how to keep the people’s attention. The average attention span of an Internet user is less than five seconds. If they don’t find what they’re looking for or if the page lacks allure, they won’t come back. Therefore advertisers and designers must optimize web content for eye fixation.

If attention span is short, the user’s aesthetic decision is quicker. It takes 1/10th of the blink of an eye or 17 ms to decide if the website is likable or not. Hence, complicated designs and format have a high chance of being ignored, which means all the potential sales down the drain.

A simple layout and clear, white background appeal much more. It also give focus on the important details of your website, so you only have to focus on content. Regarding content placement, an eye tracking tool will help determine the user’s fixation point on the site and the length of time spent looking at a particular object.

EyeQuant, for example, uses eye tracking data to help you determine how people will respond to your design. They found that color contrast, bolded text, faces, and a bunch of graphics draw attention. But keep them in moderation. If you already have an excellent graphic, avoid making them click on something else by distracting them with unnecessary details.

Tell them what to do exactly.

An American psychologist, Paul Fitts, states, “that movement time is proportional to the distance target divided by the size of the target.” The closer and bigger the target is, the quicker the response—highly applicable to buttons online.

According to the people at MIT’s The Touch Lab, the optimal width for a web button is 48px. The size is optimal for mobile web browsing too as it is also the width of an adult human’s finger pad. Thus, a bigger or smaller button does not increase returns, and might also affect the sales process negatively.

In this case, you’re trying to get customers to buy your product or subscribe to your service. This is where the call-to-action buttons (CTA) come to play. Other than size, make the CTA button more visible through color. Remember to harmonize the color with the existing color scheme of your website. Colors on the opposite side of the color wheel like red/green and blue/orange are sure to have high visual impact.

CTA buttons must be in the same place on the page so users can find easily. To see where site visitors are clicking, you can use SumoMe’s Heat Maps. That way you can strategically place the button where it can elicit more activity from the user. A simple solution is to put buttons “above the fold”. Newspapers apply this concept by placing the most relevant information on the front page above the paper fold as readers look there first. Use the same idea to your web page and place buttons in the space where users see it without having to scroll down. Avoid crowding the button by placing it too close to other elements. Give it white space instead.

A web design company should now what will bait customers to your site. Web presence is crucial in the times, sometimes more important than sales strategy. Help your business rank up its sales by providing a memorable logo. Go the extra mile by having customer engagement. This means providing past experiences to potential clients through excellent reviews and emotional connections. Last but not the least, encourage them to click buttons that lead them to check out their purchases.